


light a fire

by alcoholandregret



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Drug Abuse, M/M, POV Alternating, nobody comes out of this unscathed and I am so sorry, the omc is just so I didn't have to make any real person a dealer yknow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 20:43:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13372716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alcoholandregret/pseuds/alcoholandregret
Summary: They both are hurting, and he wishes he could have stopped it - could have kept the lovely Mikey he'd always known.It all started like this. Well, okay, Nate has no fucking clue how it actually started, he just knows how his knowledge of the situation started.





	light a fire

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [rockstar by Post Malone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GFAZBKZVJY)
> 
> hey if you didn't read the tags, Mikey has a drug abuse problem - specifically a very unspecific variety of pills - in this,,,, like Major TW for that,,, so be careful and maybe don't read if that'll affect you 
> 
> stay safe, loves<3

Mikey's kind of like a hedgehog, Nate thinks. Unbelievably cute and perfectly fine if you're gentle with it and it trusts you, but it sure does hurt like a bitch if it gets spooked. The best thing about him, though, is that he's almost always the small, cute, cuddly thing that Nate loves so much. He's never felt the pain of getting too close to something so... pointy. He's honestly assumed that he'd never end up needing to nurse even a scratch from Mikey.

But here he is, and it feels like he has a hundred little quills stuck in his hands.

It's not... it's not his fault. It doesn't feel like it's either of their faults, really. From what Nate can tell, it seems like Mikey was just puffing himself up more and more and Nate was the one that ended up caught in the aftermath. As painful as the needles tearing into his hands are, he can only think about how bad it felt for Mikey - having pieces of him torn out.

They both are hurting, and he wishes he could have stopped it - could have kept the lovely Mikey he'd always known.

It all started like this. Well, okay, Nate has no fucking clue how it  _ actually _ started, he just knows how his knowledge of the situation started.

_ November 2017 _

Nate's like, finally ninety percent asleep at least when his phone rings on his bedside table, echoing through his room. He presses his pillow against his ears and groans until he's pretty sure that his phone is about to give up on whoever is calling and just send them to voicemail. He could do that easily and not feel particularly bad about it, but he decides last second that it could be important.

Like, who makes phone calls anymore, y'know? No one he knows.

He slides his finger across the screen to answer the phone without even looking at it, moving the pillow so he can hold it to his ear. "'Lo?"

"Nater?" Ryan says, and it sounds like a sigh of relief.

"Yeah? What's up?" He pulls the phone away from his ear for a second to check the time. "You know it's almost one, right?"

"Yeah, sorry," he sounds tired, but more of a bone-tired than just something due to the late hour. "I'm just worried."

All of this has led to Nate  _ also _ being worried, like, stupidly worried, given that he has no idea what or who he's supposed to be worried about. He just knows Ryan never sounds like this, and he never  _ calls _ Nate, especially not at one in the morning. So he's worried.

"What's wrong?"

"It's Mikey."

"What about Mikey?"

_ There's a point, Ryan thinks, where "I'm just trying to have a good time, okay?" becomes "I have an actual problem" and he's pretty sure Mikey is past it. It's not like he'll actually admit it, though, so it's more like he's somewhere stuck in the ink black void of that point. He's past having a good time, well into having a problem, but he doesn't know or doesn't care to admit it. _

_ It's not been so big a deal that he's been too worried about it, you know? Like, it's been a thing, obviously, and he's seen him take a pill with a shitty beer more times than he's like to think about - and that's just the times he's seen.  _

_ He isn't sure what they all are and he isn't really sure that Mikey knows either. That's probably the most concerning part. _

_ He asked him when he was going to stop, and Mikey just shrugged and told him he was fine, that this was just to have a good time, that none of them are dangerous for him and all that other shit.  _

_ "It's not like they're pain pills, Ry. It'll be fine." _

_ He doesn't think it's fine. _

_ Ryan's wanted to tell Nate pretty much the entire time, but he hasn't wanted to worry him too badly, and he half expected Mikey to stop. But it's been a month, and he hasn't, and he just received a text from his brother that says  _ 'hey just got some meds I'm gonna stop at the dollar store for red bull do you want anything'  _ and it makes something really click for him. _

_ This is past the point it should be. The fact that he feels like it's okay, that it's  _ normal _ to just drop that information like that... it's concerning.  _

lemonade _ he replies, and decides that it's time to call Nate. He should know. _

_ He waits until Mikey's asleep to actually do it, though, not wanting to risk his brother hearing him. He doesn't want to lose the trust that he's got now, and, as much as it hurts to see him do the shit he does - to even hear about it, he'd much rather know it's happening. This isn't something he wants to be in the dark about. At all. _

"He just... said he picked up pills?" Nate asks, much more awake now, much more concerned, too. He pinches his arm, hoping he'd wake up from this stupid nightmare his brain formulated just because he misses Mikey. 

He doesn't wake up, though.

Ryan sighs, and Nate feels it like it came from him. Maybe it did. Who knows.

"Yeah. I just wanted you to know, I guess."

"Thanks," he mumbles, because he's glad he knows, that Ryan felt like it was important to tell him, but this might be one of those things where ignorance is bliss. He pushes that thought away immediately, because this is  _ Mikey _ , and if he didn't know he couldn't try to help. He has to try to help. "So what do we do?"

"At this point? Hope he stops, I guess."

"You can't- that's not-" Nate takes a second to breathe before collecting himself enough to respond to that. "We can't just  _ hope _ ."

"Do you have any other plans?"

No. No he doesn't. 

"It's just been a month," Ryan still sounds so fucking tired and Nate really hates it, but he gets it, now, "maybe he'll stop."

Nate knows he won't - knows how Mikey is and how this kind of thing can go, but he doesn't say that. Ryan knows him better, he guesses, and he knows more about the situation at the very least.

"Okay. Keep me updated, please?"

"Of course."

Ryan keeps him updated simply by telling him when he sees or knows Mikey's done something, or if he hasn't been home in a while. It's all more often than Nate would like, and it's really  _ really _ starting to scare him. 

_ December 2017 _

They lose to Team USA in the shootout. Again. It isn't as big a deal this time, Nate knows this, given that it's just in round robin, but he knows it's the principle of the matter moreso than the actual affect that outcome has on their tournament. Old wounds and all that. He knows Mikey, and he knows that Mikey knows that too, but he can't be sure that that's how he's actually  _ taking _ the loss. 

He isn't sure how Mikey takes anything, anymore, really.

_ hey clouder u okay? _

fine. 

_ Mikey hits send on the message moments after the initial text arrived in the first place. He sorts through the couple different pills spread out on the hotel bed's comforter in front of him. He'd told himself he wouldn't do this over the tournament, wouldn't risk  _ World Juniors  _ on something so stupid. He hasn't taken anything since he got the call about selection camp. Weeks ago.  _

_ It hasn't been that big of a problem. Sure, there were times he could  _ use _ something, but like, it's all good. He didn't once feel like he  _ needed,  _ well, any of them. Well, like, beyond the 'ugh, I need a _____' feeling people get all the time. If people can say 'ugh, I need a drink' how is this any different? The important thing is he hasn't acted on it, thank you very much. _

_ But now everything kind of fucking sucks, because there's a handful of them on the team that remember the bitter taste of silver at the hands of Team USA and a shootout, but most of them don't. They don't  _ know _ how that feels, but Mikey does, and he can't help but taste that goddamn silver in his mouth a year later as he sits in a hotel in a different city, still trying to defrost from the biting cold of that game. _

_ Taylor is in the bathroom, taking a hot shower to warm up, and he just shut the water off, so if Mikey is going to do this, he has to do it now. He plays eenie meenie miney mo and pulls out the one his finger lands on, throwing the rest into the bottle and tucking it neatly under an old hoodie in his bag. It's Nate's, he notes absently. He doesn't even remember how he got it. _

_ Taylor walks out as he downs the pill - Thorazine this time, he's pretty sure - with a little bottle of Gatorade. _

_ "You good?" Taylor asks, toweling off his hair. _

_ "Yeah. Just some Ibuprofen. Kinda sore." _

_ "Join the club," his roommate laughs, tossing the damp towel at him. _

_ Mikey laughs along with him, but it dies in his throat when he sees Nate texted him again. _

I love you

yeah,  _ he writes back and tosses his phone onto the pillow next to him. He's not going to feel bad about it later, and he's thankful he took the medicine he took. He could use the numb, right about now. No worries - not of the loss, not of the rest of the tournament, not of the fact that he broke his promise to himself, and not of the hoodie in his bag or the boy it belongs to.  _

_ No worries. None. Nothing at all, in fact. It's one of his favourite feelings - or really, lack thereof - these days. It's nice. _

They've been friends for  _ years _ , and not once has Mikey done something like that. Like, there's been the 'of course you do' and 'duh' kind of things, but those are always in good fun. Nate's done it too.

It feels a little like his heart stops beating in his chest, and it's shriveling up more and more with every second he stares at the one word.

Mikey's not fine, and Nate misses his best friend more than anything.

_ January 2018 _

They won. They fucking did it - they won and they've got the gold and Mikey was on ice for the clinching goal and Nate is just  _ so fucking proud. _ He wishes more than anything he was in Buffalo and could be  _ there _ and with Mikey and just - god he misses him so much. He just loves him so much.

He wants to tell him these things.  _ Hey Mikey, proud of you. Love you. Wish I was there. _ He can't, though. Mikey doesn't want to talk to him, obviously, so he leaves him to celebrate with his teammates, and if he wants to talk to him, well, then he can reach out.

It's for the best this way, he thinks.

_ Taylor's 'let's get fucking drunk!' echos in his ears as they all do just that. He hasn't left cloud nine since the final buzzer - since before then, really, but he's got his fourth beer in his hand, and he's starting to come down from that. Everyone around him is still high on life - high on the win - and Mikey's dropping off, and it fucking sucks.  _

_ Nate never texted him. Nate doesn't even fucking care anymore, like, he fucked that up somehow. He doesn't want to hear from him, didn't even care to give him the bare minimum 'congrats' or even just the confetti emojis he'd gotten from people he doesn't even speak to that much. Nothing but radio silence from his best friend, and it doesn't feel like he won. _

_ He shoves his drink into someone's hand and wobbles his way back to his room, using the wall as a support. It takes a couple of tries to get the room key to work, and he tosses it onto his bed, plopping onto the ground in front of his bag. He just stares into it for a moment, but there's really no hesitation when he pulls out the hoodie, throwing it over his shoulder so he can get the bottle out. _

_ He only has two Adderall left. _

_ He takes them both. _

_ He'll just have to call Jace when he gets home. Or he could do it now, just so he knows he can get some when he's back. That could work. _

_ He sits there and takes deep breaths for a short while until it starts to kick in and he feels less wobbly. It feels like it takes forever, but that's probably just the alcohol, and Mikey buries the bottle under a t-shirt before standing up. He grabs the key card off his bed and turns to leave.  _

_ After a moment of hesitation, he picks the hoodie up and pulls it over his head. _

_ “Yo where'd you go?” Jake Bean asks when he knocks on the door to the room everyone's at again. “No one saw you leave.” _

_ “Got cold,” he shrugs. _

_ He unlocks his phone as he walks into the room, letting his thumb hover over Nate's contact for a moment before he clicks on ‘Jacey Dills.’ _

_ Their ‘code’ or whatever Jace called it is stupid as fuck, but it gets the job done. Mikey sticks with it, at least. _

hey is addy home?

not til tuesday. 10 okay?

yeah I can pick her up then

cool

_ He ignores how much that's gonna cost, and pockets his phone. Another beer is pushed into his hands, and he thanks whoever it was as they walk off. _

_ He's not thinking about Nate, now, honest. It's nice. _

_ He has the promise of ten more Adderall, a beer in his hand, and a gold medal in the suitcase in his hotel room and everything is really fucking good now. _

_ The high of the drug and the heat of the crowded room combined with the Property of Steelheads hoodie that's not property of Michael McLeod is making him feel like he's on fire, but he wouldn't change it for the world. _

_ This is the best feeling there is. _

Mikey never reaches out to Nate, and Nate tries to ignore how bad that hurts. All he can do, at this point, is hope Mikey didn't do anything too stupid while he didn't have anyone to keep eyes on him. He feels bad for thinking about him that way, like his best friend is a toddler that needs babysat, but that's the way it feels anymore.

He still gets updates from Ryan from time to time, but he has a sinking feeling in his stomach that he no longer knows about it every time it happens. If Mikey's started hiding it more, then the problem is even more out of hand than previously thought. 

That means he knows he's doing something wrong.

But he's not stopping.

He either doesn't care to stop, or can't, and Nate really doesn't know which hurts more. They’re equally terrifying, he thinks. Not to mention Mikey still hasn't even spoken to him since the loss against USA.

It's all a lot, and Ryan keeps giving him information, and every single time Nate thinks about asking him to stop.

There's nothing he can do about it, anyway. Not from Bing. Not even in general, maybe.

It sucks.

_ February 2018 _

Valentine's Day is the worst day of the year, in Nate's opinion. Last year, he and Mikey spent the night before getting drunk and complaining about how it's just capitalism feeding off of the concept of love or some shit like that. It was all nonsense, probably, but still. He's just glad they share a mutual hatred for the day.

They've spent the past four at least together, though. Nate always buys Mikey shitty two dollar chocolate hearts, and Mikey buys Nate one of those little stuffed animals that are holding little hearts. They split the chocolate and the stuffed animal gets added to the shelf Nate has in his room just for them.

Valentine's Day is the worst day of the year as a concept, but they always made it theirs, and  _ that, _ Nate thinks is the worst fucking part. It's a day with ‘love’ glued all over it with those shitty purple glue sticks, and he's used to spending it with Mikey, who he loves more than anyone in this fucking world.

And now, he gets to spend it alone, eating cheap chocolate by himself, and he hasn't talked to Mikey in nearly two months.

He pops the strawberry creme one into his mouth and frowns. It doesn't taste as good without his best friend yelling at him for taking the best one. He gets a text, and he  _ hopes _ , but it's from Nic.

_ Is Mikey okay? _

_ I don't know?  _

Isn't  _ Nic _ the one that's with him in Missy, not Nate? How should he know? So, okay, he knows he should, that normally he  _ would _ , but he doesn't. And he'd prefer not to think about it.

_ He hasn't said anything? _

_ not to me _

Nic calls him, then, evidently deciding that this was a pressing enough matter to have an actual conversation about it. Nate swallows the chocolate and answers.

“I'm worried about him.”

Join the club, Nate doesn't say. 

“Why?” he asks instead.

_ It's the seventh practice Mikey has shown up to late in the past month, and Nic is annoyed, mostly, but also a little concerned, considering how unlike Mikey that is. They've both worn the C this season - Nic picking it up when Mikey's away, and it's important to both of them. He knows, however, how much more important it must be to Mikey, who wore it last year, who nearly dragged the team to the OHL finals himself. _

_ It wasn't just him, obviously, they all know that, but there's no way they could have done it without him. Both on ice and in the locker room. _

_ So now, to have him not in the locker room just as they were finally,  _ finally _ , starting to pick up the shattered pieces of their season so they can try to glue them together into another deep playoff run… it's not good. It's not good, and it's not Mikey. _

_ He'll ask him, of course, and it's not his place to spread concern about his private life when he doesn't even know what's going on, but the look Tipsy sends his way when Mikey walks in is enough to know he's not the only one that's worried. _

_ “Do you think something's up with Clouder?” He asks when he makes his way over to Nic’s stall. “‘Cause this is weird, right?”  _

_ Nic just nods and tries not to notice the dark circles under their captain's eyes. _

_ “You take him I'll take Ry?” _

_ “Sure,” he shrugs and bumps his fist against Tipsy’s when it's held out in front of him. _

_ Later, between drills, he sees Owen talking to Ryan off to the side, and Ryan's shaking his head. Tipsy skates over to him with a shrug, so he guesses he learned nothing. Which is just great, especially considering he hasn't been able to find one spare second to talk to Mikey. He probably shouldn't do it during practice, anyway. They really don't need to lose him on the ice, too. _

_ He catches him before the leave the ice at the end of practice. _

_ “Hey, you good to talk for a second?” _

_ Mikey glances at the clock and shifts on his feet a little, tapping his stick against his skates. “I have a couple minutes, I guess, yeah.” _

_ They're alone after Nic tells James they'll just be a moment, and everyone else is in the locker room, and suddenly this is a lot harder than he thought it would be. _

_ “What's up?” _

_ “You're our captain, and I'm worried about you,” he says simply, because that's really all it boils down to, isn't it? _

_ Mikey’s eyebrows pinch together and he shakes his head. “Why? I'm fine.” _

_ “I don't know,” Nic lies, like he can't see what looks like bruises instead of bags under his eyes. “You've just been late recently.” _

_ “Just tired. Sorry. I'll work on it.” _

_ “Maybe just come to practice with Ryan,” Nic forces a smile onto his face and punches Mikey's shoulder lightly. “Easy fix.” _

_ “Yeah.” He follows Mikey's eyes to the clock, and sees them widen. “I gotta get going. Thanks, man.” _

_ “Yeah, I just-” _

_ “You're a good captain,” he says and makes his way to the locker room, leaving Nic stood alone on the ice, staring at the big 9 on his back. _

“-so I thought maybe you knew what was going on.”

“No,” Nate half-lies. He has some idea, obviously, but he still has no clue what's  _ actually _ going on with Mikey. “I haven't talked to him since December.”

“You haven't-” Nic stutters, “ _ you _ ?  _ December _ ?”

“Nope.”

“Something really is wrong, then, oh my god. Is he-”

“Stop,” Nate interrupts with a sigh. “I'm sure he's fine. If he says he's okay, I guess he's okay.”

“Nate-”

“I know Mikey, Nic.”

_ I knew Mikey. _

That makes him relent, though, because Nic probably takes that as a valid point at face value. “Okay.”

“Don't be a stranger,” he says and pops another chocolate into his mouth.

“You too, Bas.”

He hears more of the same from Ryan - that Mikey was late, that Tip asked him about it, that Ryan shrugged and said he must just be tired.

The newer information, though, he'd rather not have.

_ “Holy shit,” Mikey laughs when he walks into Ryan's room whenever he got back from where he disappeared to after practice. He shakes a little orange bottle with a bunch of different coloured pills inside. _

_ “I don't want to look at that,” Ryan says honestly. Mikey knows by now how he feels about this shit. “Put it away.” _

_ “Whatever,” Mikey shrugs and stuffs it into the pocket of his jacket. “Listen-” _

_ “No, Mikey.” _

_ “C’mon, don't be fucking boring, dude. It's nothing bad, you know that.” _

_ Ryan doesn't, but their parents are home, and he doesn't want to have this argument again. “Alright. What do you want?” _

_ “Jace gave me a Valentine's Day discount on this shit.” _

_ “Jace?” _

_ “Yeah. Jason? Dillon?” _

_ Ryan has the vaguest memory of one of Mikey's friends from high school, but he didn't realise they even still talked. They do, apparently. Pretty often, he'd guess. _

_ “Okay.” _

_ “All I had to do was, like, kiss him and I saved thirty bucks,” he shrugs, and he's grinning wider than Ryan's seen in a long time and it makes his stomach turn. _

_ “Why did you think I wanted to know about any of this?” _

_ “Because I saved thirty dollars?” _

_ He's tired of this, tired of hearing about it, tired of Mikey doing this to himself. “That's not a reason to fucking celebrate.” _

_ “Matt would be happy for me,” he huffs and shoves his hands in his pockets, and Ryan can hear the pills rattle. _

_ “Matt would kick your ass if he knew,” he sighs, and he wonders if Mikey can tell how fucking  _ sad _ this is. “You have to know that.” _

_ He just glares at him and storms off, slamming his bedroom door behind him. _

“Don't tell me anymore,” Nate says simply, trying to swallow the lump in his throat.

“That's really all I had to-”

“No, I mean any of it. I don't-” he sighs “-I don't want to know anymore.”

“Nate, come on,” Ryan starts, “I can't do this alone.”

“Then tell Matt. Have him kick his ass. I just can't do it, Ry.”

The silence on the line hangs between them forever, and Nate can feel the tears pricking at his eyes, and he just feels so fucking  _ weak _ .

“I'm sorry,” he barely breathes out before hanging up, just letting his phone slip out of his hand and onto the floor.

Nate throws the rest of the chocolate away and tries his best to fight back the tears before giving up entirely. He crumples to the floor beside his phone, and, as he struggles to breathe, he wonders how Mikey got to this point. 

How any of them got to this point.

_ March 2018 _

He fights tooth and nail to keep his season going strong with Bing, but it gets pretty fucking difficult sometimes when all he can think about is how he abandoned his best friend. Nate tries to justify it to himself, sometimes. There's nothing he could do from all the way out here, it's not like Mikey wanted to talk to him anyway, if Ryan can't help him how could he, et cetera, et cetera.

Mikey doesn't care as much about Nate as Nate cares about Mikey.

It's fine.

He keeps playing hockey, and they're not doing too hot - definitely not making the playoffs this year, he can tell. The Steelheads just scraped by into a playoff spot, and he envies that. He's glad Mikey seems to be performing well - well, not late-season Mikey well, but, good enough.

He knows he'll be packing his bags in one month's time, flying back home to Kitchener, and he'll be  _ so close _ to his old life. It's gone, though. He knows this.

They were Mikey-and-Nate for so long, and now they're Mikey, and from far away, Nate. He hasn't even spoken to Ryan much since Valentine's Day, and he knows that's entirely his own damn fault. All of this is.

Well, that isn't true, but it sure fucking feels like it.

Nate wants nothing more than to talk to Mikey, but the more he stares at the last grey text bubble, the little  _ yeah _ , the less it feels like he would even know how.

_ sorry _ , he texts Ryan instead.

_ when you get back, come over _

_ okay _ , Nate promises, and it's the last thing he wants to do. He knows he has to, though.  _ how r u,  _ he adds.

_ Ryan laughs at the screen when it comes up, thinks about the bottle of shitty whiskey that Mikey bought for him when he asked him to that he's just shoved into the side of his sock drawer, and replies simply,  _ fucking great.

_ This whole thing, all of it, feels like it's killing him anymore. Before, when Mikey talked to him about it, and he had Nate on his side, it was easier. But now, Nate wants nothing to do with it, and his brother doesn't seem to trust him anymore, and it kind of feels like he's stuffed in his sock drawer too. He'd lost the one person he knew he could trust in this, his friend and the only person who he's ever met that just  _ got _ Mikey the way Nate did, and now. _

_ Now he's alone, the only person that knows this is happening anymore, and he doesn't even know much about that these days, either. _

_ He hasn't opened the whiskey, hasn't wanted to, like, actually get to that point. It's all hitting him how far this has all gotten, and he just wants it to stop. Wants Mikey to stop, but he won't listen to him. _

_ In the room next to him, there's a thud against the wall followed by muffled laughter, and he doesn't even know what it was, or what would cause Mikey to throw something and find it so amusing, or-. _

_ He walks over to his dresser and opens the sock drawer. _

Nate doesn't get a response, and he figures that's answer enough. He doesn't know how he'd answer that, either. He can't even imagine how bad it must be for Ryan, and he feels like the worst person in the world.

Maybe he is.

_ April 2018 _

The Steelheads lose in a sweep in the second round of the playoffs. Bing doesn't make it. It's the way it is.

Nate's been home for a couple of days, now, and it's not like he's  _ avoiding _ going to the McLeods’ house, but… he's been busy, okay? Like, really busy. The busiest. He had to unpack, and. And.

Yeah.

Maybe he's been avoiding it.

He told Ryan he would, though, and he owes him that much, at least. He's tried to stay in touch better with him, considering that was like, the least he could do. There were a night or two where the messages were borderline indecipherable, and the thought of that has the concern churning in Nate’s stomach enough that he realises he really needs to go to Missy.

It's past time where he needs to know what's actually going on.

_ you busy today?  _ He texts Ryan, who replies immediately.

_ no come over _

_ okay _

He's in his car within five minutes.

The drive to Mississauga is a blur, mostly, and it feels like the months he’d been gone were surrounding the bubble of  _ now _ that he lived in from inside the safety of his car. They’re chasing him, they’re being left behind, they’re what’s resting between him and Mikey. They’re fucking inescapable and Nate can’t breathe, so he runs down his windows, but that just bursts the bubble and they’re surrounding him entirely now as he pulls into the driveway of a place that used to feel like home.

It feels like he’s being compressed as he walks to the door, shrinking more and more as he gets closer to it until it feels like he’s staring at a one-hundred foot door, and it’s too intimidating, he needs to fucking go, like, right now, and-

“Nate?” 

The sudden view of Ryan in the door makes him snap back to his normal size so fast he feels like he might fall over. Or throw up. Yeah, mostly the latter. When did it get so hot out here?

“Hey,” Ryan says softly and pulls him into a hug, and it’s like all the air flies back into Nate’s lungs all at once and he finds himself gasping for it. He feels better almost instantly, and he wraps his arms around his friend and holds on tight.

“Do you want to see him now, or later?” Ryan mutters when he pulls back, and Nate finally looks at him, and he looks as exhausted as he sounded the first time he called him what feels like years ago.

It’s… a loaded question, really.  _ Yes _ he wants to see Mikey, has wanted to see Mikey since the moment he left Newark to head to Binghamton.  _ Yes _ he wants to see him, he’s been so concerned for so long, and he needs this. Needs to see that he’s okay. On the other hand. What if he’s not? What if  _ Mikey _ really doesn’t want to see  _ him _ ? They haven’t talked in months, after all, and  _ yeah _ burns hot in the back of Nate’s mind. He has every reason to leave Missy today without even once seeing Mikey. He wanted to check in on Ryan, anyway. Nothing wrong with baby steps.

“Now,” his mouth says.

Now it is, then, apparently.

Ryan nods and walks into the house, and Nate follows suit, and he knows this place better than the back of his hand. He knows that’s not the phrase, but like, he’s pretty sure if he had to identify the back of his hand from a line of similar looking hands, he’d have no fucking idea. He could draw a map of the McLeod house with his eyes closed and a sharpie in his hand and he wouldn’t miss a single step on the staircase.

Ryan pats his back lightly when they stop at Mikey’s door, and the question  _ “want me to stay?”  _ is written plainly across his face, so Nate just shakes his head, and he retreats into his own room.

Nate hesitates for a second, but bites the bullet and knocks on the door, using the ‘secret knock’ they came up with four years ago. There’s a lot of scrambling noises, followed by a muffled “come in?”

He opens the door, and Mikey is hunched over beside his bed, only kind of peeking out, but as soon as he sees Nate, a thousand expressions flash across his face, but it settles on relief.

“I thought you were Judes,” he says, straightening up.

It feels a little like a knife in his chest, which is kind of stupid, he knows, but the  _ knock _ .

“No, just. Me,” he shrugs, and.

And watching Mikey open a little orange capsule and toss the contents into his mouth while he’s wearing a Steelheads hoodie that has a little white 14 across his heart makes Nate queasy in a way he never felt before.

“What was that?” He asks, slowly, but he doesn’t want to know.

Mikey tosses the capsule into the empty Red Bull can on his nightstand. “Adderall, I guess.”

“You guess? Mikey-”

“Hey, you’re being loud,” he hurries over and shuts the door behind him.

“You’re going to be loud soon, I think.”

“No,” Mikey shakes his head and walks over to his bed, plopping down on it. “I don’t get loud. I just get fast.”

“Fast.”

“Yeah. I’m also gonna need some fuckin water.”

“Now?”

“Nah. Not yet. Just like, I will.”

The fact that he’s talking about this so casually is, as a concept, pretty fucking terrifying. He doesn’t know Nate has known about this. He thinks this is fucking  _ normal _ enough to just… say these things. Nate doesn’t want to know, but he can’t stop himself.

“Why’d you do that?”

“I was bored, I guess. No plans for today, so-”

“No, like,” he walks over and sits next to Mikey, “the pill? You threw it out.”

“Nah, you open it and eat the little like, beads shit.”

“Gross.”

“It makes it work faster.”

_ I hate that you know this _ , he doesn’t say, but it’s on the tip of his tongue, combined with a hundred thousand other things, and they’re all tying themselves up in knots trying to escape his mouth, so he says nothing. 

“How have you been?” He asks eventually. He wonders how big of a lie the answer is going to be.

“Great,” Mikey beams. “Like, I’m feeling really good right now.”

_ Is it me, or the drug?  _

He catches sight of a box of Sudafed on Mikey’s bedside table, and he gestures to it weakly. “Why do you have that?”

“Sinus infection,” he shrugs, and Nate can’t tell if he’s lying.

“You sound fine.”

“That’s because of the Sudafed, dude.”

That’s… maybe true, so he’ll have to take it. He’d ask Judi about it, but he doesn’t want to raise any suspicion and lose Mikey because of it. Frankly, he was kind of already sure that he had. There’s more pressing matters at hand, really, but he has not one single fucking clue how to even begin to approach this. How to approach any of it. He feels like he’s suffocating again, and he finds himself curling up, hunching over until his head is nearly pressed against his calves where they’re crossed in front of him.

“Nate? Hey, Nater,” Mikey wraps his arms around him, and it’s both a comfort and the most painful thing he’s experienced in a long time. “Are you okay?”

“I missed you,” he says once he feels like he can breathe again. “I miss you,” he adds, meaning  _ the you that would be as scared of this as I am _ , but he isn’t sure Mikey gets that memo at all.

“You were gone for so long,” Mikey mumbles, and he tugs just lightly enough on Nate that he lets him guide him until they’re laying side by side on the bed, and Nate tucks his head under his chin in that way he’s so used to doing, and for a moment he can pretend things are okay.

“So were you.”

“I’ve been right here this whole time.”

“It didn’t feel like it.”

They let that hang between them for what feels like forever, and Nate is right there, pressed against Mikey’s side, in Mikey’s bed, in his fucking house, but he feels like they’re worlds apart. It’s not a feeling he’s ever had, and one he’d prefer to squish down, thank you very much.

He can’t, though, and neither of them say anything.

Nate knows he needs to talk to him about this, about everything, but for right now, he wants to pretend. He’s allowed that. He has to be allowed that.

It doesn’t last long. Mikey sits bolt upright, suddenly, and Nate has to blink a couple of times to recuperate. He’s at the door before Nate even sits up.

“I need water, like, now, I’ll be right back. Yeah? Yeah.”

He’s quieter than usual, and he’s talking fast. Like, Dylan level fast. Maybe faster.

He’s gone, and it feels like Nate has had exactly zero seconds of processing time between Mikey’s heartbeat in his ears and the sound of his feet on the steps. Their rhythms match - too fast. Unnatural. He hates it.

The moment Mikey walks back into the room and shuts the door, he downs half the water bottle in one go, setting it beside him on the bed when he sits back down. He pulls Nate’s head into his lap and runs a hand through his hair. 

“I’m probably gonna have three of those, at least.”

“Why?”

“I get thirsty,” he shrugs.

Nate pokes his inner thigh next to where his head is resting. “Don’t pee on me, dude,” he jokes, but it sounds strangled even to his own ears. Mikey doesn’t seem to notice.

“I won’t,” he laughs, and he’s grinning that Mikey McLeod smile of his as he looks down at Nate, and it’s something that he’s been - admittedly - in love with since the first time he saw it, but now it’s… Off. Somehow.

He looks at him, like,  _ really _ looks at him, and Mikey’s eyes are… Wrong. Everything about them is wrong. His pupils are so blown it seems like the only blue Nate can see is in the dark circles under them.

“Oh holy shit do you wanna see something fun?” He tugs lightly on Nate’s hair. “This is, like, my favourite thing.”

Nate can’t stop looking at the empty black where there should be blue, and he nods absently. 

Mikey messes around on his phone for a second, and Rap God starts playing, and he sets the phone on Nate’s chest. “It’s so fast, and I’m so fa- wait. This isn’t going to be fun for you.”

_ None of this has been. _

“Do you want one?”

“Do I-” Nate stops mid-sentence and just blinks, because  _ what. _

“Do you? I have a couple more left I think so it’s not a-”

“Mikey.” Nate sighs when he sits up. “This isn’t fun.”

“Right, which is why-”

“No.” It feels like his entire throat is closing in on him, and he grabs Mikey’s hands, squeezing too tight. He thinks he might cry. Honestly, he might be. “Mikey this isn’t fucking  _ fun. _ None of this is fun. You’re fucking scaring me. You need to stop, please.”

“It’s just one pill, Nate.”

“Is it?”

Mikey’s face turns to stone, and  _ this _ is the scariest part of all of it. “You sound like Ryan.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

His hands are absolutely burning where they’re wrapped around Mikey’s.

“Get out,” he shoves Nate away, first by the hands in his, then by his chest, and Nate goes. He fucking goes, because he’s a coward, because he isn’t strong enough to stand up to his best friend, the person he loves most in the world, to tell him how bad this is. He ran away once, in February, and he’s running away again, now. 

There are a thousand quills in his hands, and in his chest, and his cheek and  _ everywhere _ he’s touched the person in that room that claimed to be Mikey. He wipes his eyes and enters Ryan’s room, not wanting to leave just yet, needing to be with someone who understands. 

Ryan opens his sock drawer the moment he sees Nate.

_ October 2017 _

_ Nate left like, ten days ago, and it’s boring and weird without him. Mikey is just left to tend to his knee by himself in Jersey, and he misses Nate bringing him ice cream whenever he whined about it from his couch back home - back where they both belong. _

_ That’s not fair, he knows that. Nate’s in Bing because he belongs in Bing. Mikey’s proud of him. _

_ Mikey’s… well, he’s not where he belongs, he thinks. He wants to think that he is - wants nothing more than to pull a jersey over his head and step onto the ice with the Devils logo proudly draped over his chest. He wants nothing more than to finally get into an NHL game.  _

_ He wants Nate. _

_ He doesn’t get either, and he tries not to be too bitter on his flight back to Mississauga once he’s sent down the moment he’s cleared to play again. _

_ It’s familiar. It’s home. _

_ Most of his teammates are here, still - along with some new ones - and his house and his neighbourhood and everything is the same. It’s, for the most part, right where he left it. _

_ Except, of course, for the 6’4” hole he can’t seem to ignore. _

_ He’d lived there sixteen years without Nathan Bastian, so there’s no real reason that not having him there again makes the city feel so muted. Nic and Owen and Cazy and Jake all try their best to get him to hang out, and he  _ does _ , but it’s wrong. With Nic and Owen, they’re missing their A - no offense, Ryan, of course. With Cazy and Jake, a member of their little family is missing. It’s miserable, and he can’t find anything to do anymore. _

_ He remembers an old friend of his, well, maybe not  _ friend _ exactly, more like some dude he hung out with a handful of times when he was fourteen and fifteen, but mostly because they had group projects to work on. _

_ Jason. _

_ Maybe he only remembers him because he looks kind of like Nate, enough that if you squint  _ just so _ you could mistake them. If you squint enough and your name isn’t Michael McLeod. _

_ He pretends, anyway. Jason - Jace, apparently, how did he not know this - is pretty cool. He likes a lot of the music Nate-and-Mikey like, and he has a similar sense of humour to the kind of shit that’s funny to Nate-and-Mikey, and- _

_ It’s just Mikey, now. No Nate-and. He struggles to remember that, sometimes. _

_ They’re getting drunk in Jace’s apartment one night, and Mikey is being kind of a giant fucking mess. Shocking news, really. What the fuck else is new, these days. _

_ “I don’t feel like I can have actual fun without him, Jace.” _

_ “I think I know how you can, actually,” he says, and he’s digging around in the backpack that was sitting next to him, and Mikey?  _

_ He’s ready to try anything. _

_ May 2018 _

Ryan spends more time at Nate’s than not, it seems. It’s probably healthier for both of them, in a way. They don’t feel the need to drink, which is definitely a good thing, and they also don’t have to watch Mikey be… like that. 

It’s worse, though,  _ so much worse _ , because they have no eyes on him anymore. It’s scary as shit. Nate knows he didn’t leave him in a good place, and he doesn’t want to think about what that could lead to. 

They’re kids - okay, they’re twenty with the exception of Ryan, but still. They shouldn’t need to deal with this. Things weren’t fucking  _ supposed _ to be like this. 

Nate remembers Buffalo. 2016. Standing next to Mikey in their matching Devils jerseys as they do interviews and videos separately, but they’re not separate. Not then, not ever. Missy to Jersey - Superbuddies sticking together. He’s seen the pictures, the interviews, the videos. He knows he’s looking at Mikey like he’s the most important thing in the world - knows Mikey was doing the same. 

He wonders, now, if things would have gone differently if he had kissed him that night in their hotel room, when they couldn’t stop giggling because  _ holy shit _ they just got  _ drafted _ and it was to the  _ same team _ , and Mikey’s face was  _ so close _ to his, and he was just so fucking in love.

He  _ is _ just so fucking in love.

He wipes his eyes, and Ryan silently rubs circles between his shoulderblades.

They don’t say much, but they don’t need to.

“Nate!” His brother calls, and Nate quickly scrubs his eyes with his sleeves in the hope that he could at least somewhat decently pretend he hadn’t been on the edge of his second breakdown that day. 

His bedroom door swings open, and his brother pokes his head in the door. “Mikey’s here.”

Mikey walks into his room, hands stuffed in the pocket his hoodie - a nine on his chest this time, so, his hoodie - and he looks even more exhausted than he did two weeks ago. 

“Ry bread,” he shifts on his feet, and he seems every ounce as broken and weak as Nate feels, “go home.”

Ryan’s hand on Nate’s back stills, and Nate fights every urge to cling onto him. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

“Just.  _ Please _ .” It’s the saddest pleading he’d ever seen from Mikey. “I’ll. I’ll talk to you when I get home. I have to do this first.”

“No, I-”

“Ryan,” Nate mumbles, reaching over and squeezing his knee, “go.”

Ryan looks at him, and there is not one single thing about this situation that doesn’t feel like it’s not wringing Nate’s heart completely dry. He nods, though, and pulls him into a hug, muttering “I’ll call you later,” into his shoulder before he stands up and walks out of the room. He pulls the door shut behind him, and Nate really feels the lack of his presence like a punch in the face the moment he can no longer see him.

That’s usually a Mikey feeling.

It’s usually a lot warmer, too. Nate just feels cold.

“What, Mikey?”

“We need to talk.”

“I know,” Nate laughs, bitter. “Will you  _ listen _ ?”

Mikey sits beside him and puts his hood up, bringing his knees to his chest. He wraps his arms around them and rests his chin on top.

Nate’s never seen him look so small.

He’s never seen a hedgehog without its quills, but he imagines it would look much smaller, too. His hands hurt again. A phantom pain he can’t get rid of.

“I love you.”

“Do you?” Nate asks, and he really didn’t mean to. He doesn’t take it back, though, because he needs to know.

“God, Nate, I never fucking stopped loving you.”

He still won’t look at him.

“Look at me.”

“Nate-”

“ _ Look at me _ ,” he says, and his voice is shaking. 

Mikey slowly turns to look at him, and Nate puts a finger under his chin so he can tilt it better to look at his eyes. Darker, tired, but blue. 

“You haven’t taken anything today, have you?” He sounds as small as Mikey looks. 

He remembers the door to the McLeods’ house, and feels the furniture in his room doing the same thing. Everything around him seems too large, too daunting, and he feels so very, very tiny, but Mikey’s tiny too. He can’t tell if that makes him feel more or less alone.

“No, I,” he takes a deep breath. “You left, and I.  _ Fuck _ . Only once, since then. I promise.”

“When.”

“Nate.”

“When.”

“That day.”

“Jesus Christ, Mikey, that can’t be fucking safe.”

“It isn’t the first time,” he shrugs weakly and lifts his chin away from Nate, turning to put it back on his arms.

“That’s terrifying,” Nate’s crying now, but he doesn’t care. “You have to know that.”

“I do.”

“Then why-”

“ _ Because _ I love you.”

“No.” He cannot believe that, not for one fucking second. “You don’t ruin your life and  _ others’ _ out of love. You don’t do that.”

“Do I get to talk?” Mikey snaps, turning abruptly to Nate, who physically recoils. The look on his face shifts into fear, too, and his eyes are watering, and Nate just wishes he could click his heels and go back to that hotel room in Buffalo. “Fuck. Fuck I’m sorry.”

Nate doesn’t respond.

“I can’t make excuses for myself, but I can explain.”

It’s a start.

It’s one of the things Nate’s needed most since he answered his phone at one in the morning seven months ago.

“I didn’t know what to do with myself, I guess, when I got home. And this guy, someone I talked to a couple of times, he said he could help. I don’t- I don’t think it fucking helped, Nate. I think it ruined everything,” he’s shaking with the sobs now, but Nate isn’t sure if it only looks like that because  _ he’s  _ shaking, or if they both are. “I missed you so much and I ruined everything.”

He doesn’t know how to respond, so he doesn’t, again. Mikey wanted to talk? He can talk. Nate has nothing to say, really. Can’t say  _ it’s okay, I understand,  _ or any of those other generic fill in the blank replies, because it isn’t okay, and he doesn’t understand. 

“I thought you hated me,” he adds quietly, and Nate feels like he’s been doused with an ocean’s worth of ice water.

He thinks he might be drowning.

“You thought I hated you?” He can barely keep his head above the rising water to gasp it out. “What?”

“You didn’t  _ talk _ to me, Nate, what was I supposed to think?”

He struggles to keep his voice down, not wanting to shout so his family wouldn’t hear. “What were  _ you _ supposed to think? Maybe ‘if I put down these fucking  _ drugs _ for three seconds I think maybe I could text Nate! That could be good!’”

“You act like I’m some kind of junkie, and I’m not.”

“For Christ sakes,” he sighs, and this is too much. “Look at yourself.”

“I’m f-” Mikey starts to say, but stops dead in his tracks.  _ Fine. _ That’s funny. “I need to get better.”

“I know.”

“I owe you an apology.”

“I know. Ryan too.”

“He’s next,” Mikey nods.

“I think he should have been first,” he says honestly.

“Maybe.”

They don’t say anything more, and air has never been more palpable in Nate’s life, he’s pretty sure. It feels like they’re both trapped in jell-o, and breathing is so difficult, but they still can, somehow. Tears are still streaming down his face, but he hardly notices them anymore.

“You know,” he says quietly, like if he speaks too loud the jell-o will collapse in on them, “the first thing about you that I loved was your smile.” Mikey still isn’t looking at him, but Nate is staring directly at the side of his hood. “It’s one of the best ones I’ve seen. Bright and happy, and so  _ you _ .”

“Nate-”

“That isn’t the Mikey I’m looking at now.”

“ _ Nate _ -” 

“I think your eyes were next. They’re so expressive, you know? And so blue, until the right lighting, and then they’re this grey that’s- I never really thought grey was a beautiful colour.”

Mikey finally looks over at him.

“That day, there was no blue. Only black.”

“I-”

“Once upon a time,” he chokes out, “there was a boy named Nate, and he had this best friend. The friend was everything Nate needed and more, and then more, and more, and more, until Nate felt like he had the world in his hands. He held the world in his hands in a hotel room in Buffalo, and the world had these very blue eyes, and a smile that could make the coldest ice melt, and he was in love with the world.”

“Nate. Please,” he’s begging, now, and Nate’s heart hurts, but he needs to say this.

“You’re  _ everything _ to me, Mikey. All of it. And I couldn’t have you for months, because you couldn’t think for ten seconds that maybe I missed you as much as you missed me. Maybe more, even, because I’m here, and you’re not  _ you _ .”

“I want to be. More than anything.”

Nate, maybe foolishly, believes him. Maybe he just wants to think this is real so badly that he’s being an idiot, but…he knows Mikey. Perhaps not  _ this _ Mikey, but he knows they can’t give up hope. Can’t just believe that the world he once held is completely overcast with pitch-black rain clouds. Mikey is in there.

“I believe you.”

“Once,” Mikey swallows and wipes at his eyes, “once upon a time-"

“You don’t-”

“-there was a boy named Mikey. He loved hockey more than anything, until one day, when hockey brought him something new. Something he started to love more than hockey so quickly it scared him. He loved and he loved and he loved until he didn’t know how not to. He lost that, somehow, along the way.”

“Mikey-”

“But not completely. He could never lose it completely. Not when he’s in love with a boy named Nate, the sun and stars that fill his skies.”

“This is so fucking gay,” Nate’s pretty sure he should be all cried-out by now, but he’s apparently not, and he’s going to need to drink an entire gallon of water after this.

“Newsflash,” Mikey jokes weakly, “that’s the point. ‘Cause I’m really gay for you, man.”

It almost feels back to normal, except it’s not, at all, and Nate wants to enjoy this, but he just can’t. 

“Yeah.”

“I know this isn’t enough, not nearly. I don’t know that there’s anything I can do or say to make it enough, but I love you so fucking much, and I want this to stop.” His face wavers, and the tears start pouring out faster, and Mikey’s wiping frantically at his eyes. “I just want this to stop.”

Nate doesn’t hesitate to turn to Mikey and pull him over, wrapping his entire body around him. He holds on tight and cries into Mikey’s hair, and they just sit like that.

He abandoned Mikey twice, now, and he’s never going to do it again, no matter what.

“We’ll make it stop,” he promises, lips ghosting against his temple. “I’m with you.”

His arms are firmly against Mikey’s back, but it doesn’t hurt. The quills he’d been stuck with are gone, but their cuts are still there - still sore - but he’s here, and Mikey’s in his arms, and they’re both hurting more than they deserve, but he’s holding Mikey again.

He’s not that cute little cuddly thing that he used to be, still missing pieces, but he’s not pointed anymore, either. Nate isn’t sure that they’ll ever fully recover from this - his hands will have pinhole scars, and Mikey’s quills may not grow back the way they were before - not completely, but they’re going to try.

They’re in this together. Nate-and-Mikey. Mikey-and-Nate. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was another one of those "haha I'll put my music on shuffle and I'll write for whatever that song is!!" things like I did with Didn't Know I Was Broken, but I got rockstar and I was just. Well. This is going to suck
> 
> and it did
> 
> and it got pretty fuckin personal (especially a lot of the stuff from Mikey's POV) so this was really difficult,, also how bad of a person does it make me that I finished this fic while I was mcfuckin uh... on adderall
> 
> I suck and I am so very sorry for all of this fic and also,, that,, but yknow
> 
> catch me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/alcoholnregret) and [tumblr](http://www.sidnate.tumblr.com)


End file.
